Canadian Stamp Designer John Belisle

As the associate creative director at the Signals Design Group in Vancouver, John Belisle [shown here] was largely responsible for designing and illustrating the new Canadian 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games series.

John is featured in an article by reporter Arlene Jongbloets that appears on the 100 Mile House Free Press Web site.

The set of stamps and souvenir sheet, which were released in January, showcases four Winter Olympic sports: freestyle skiing; snowboard; bobsleigh and curling, as well as ice sledge hockey, a Paralympic Winter sport.

Belisle is quoted as saying, “We were inspired by Olympic imagery of the 1940s and 1950s, particularly the highly romanticized silk-screened posters of the era. We started with basic sketches of athletes in action and, to give the design a contemporary spin, we layered the images.”

He went on to explain, "These layers of transparencies capture the movement of the athletes. Blues and whites worked into the stamp designs convey the feeling of snow and ice."

According to the article, Belise recently rekindled a connection with his former high school art teacher, Bob Law. When he discovered Law was an avid stamp collector, Belisle sent him the first sketch he did for the Olympic stamp.

To read the entire article, click here.

Click here to see all the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games stamps and souvenir sheet designed by the Signals Design Group.